


Master of Espionage

by situationnormal



Category: K-pop, Shinhwa
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/situationnormal/pseuds/situationnormal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hyesung's timing with the whole project group S thing is very suspicious, so Eric and Kim Dongwan, Master of Espionage, begin Operation Stop Hyesung.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Master of Espionage

**Author's Note:**

> Something really silly inspired by the S comeback news, although it takes place around the time of their first album. If you read this already on LJ earlier in the week, I had to add in a handful of sections, so the second draft is a bit different (because I forgot about the existence of "Just One Moment"). And my usual alcohol and food mentions are included, in case you're sensitive to either/or (+ more cursing than usual?)

Eric was never really the jealous type, but anyone would have to admit Hyesung’s timing was strange. A few days after they decided to take a break, Hyesung decided to form a project group with Kangta and Ji Hoon?

Yeah, sure, Eric and Hyesung broke up or took a break every other week, and sometimes they took breaks for weeks, or months, but still. Knowing Hyesung-ie, it was definitely meant to be a blow to Eric’s pride—why else wouldn’t he have been told what was going on before the rest of the world knew? If it wasn’t meant as a blow to his pride, it was just as good as an open admission that Hyesung was cheating, or planning to cheat.

That was how Eric had interpreted it, anyway, since they had decided to take a break after Hyesung had gotten jealous over some girl who said “hi” in a bar one night. Hyesung had been furious when Eric had responded, and had insisted he was cheating. When Eric had laughed and said he was being ridiculous, Hyesung had suggested they “take a break” and that maybe he would find someone to occupy his own time with while he was away from Eric.

That bastard. Eric had thought he was being dramatic, but he was seriously planning on cheating. He was going to do it right in front of Eric’s face, too. He was going to do it right in front of everyone’s face.

The most humiliating part was, everyone thought Eric had known about it all along, and kept asking him about it. Not that most people knew about the extent of his relationship with Hyesung, but it still rubbed salt in the wound every time he had to say “I don’t know” or “he’s really excited” when he was just finding out himself.

Hyesung was probably waiting by the phone, expecting Eric to call, upset, so he could gloat. But Eric refused to give him the satisfaction. He wouldn’t be the one who went crawling back. And he definitely wouldn’t let go of his pride and ask Hyesung about it. If he wanted to be a lying, dirty cheater then that was his own business. Eric wouldn’t try and put a stop to it. That was where Dongwan—master of espionage—came in. Master of espionage, and also master of acting. If anyone could convince Hyesung to come clean and admit his wrongdoings, it was Dongwan. Which was why he was sitting at the table adjacent to Eric’s, at a roadside food stand, wearing a dark jacket and a cap pulled down over his eyes, looking pretty suspicious but not much like a celebrity.

“Mr. Kim,” Eric whispered without looking directly at Dongwan.

“Mr. Mun,” Dongwan responded, taking a careful sip of his beer.

“Here’s the plan.” Eric slipped the folded napkin into Dongwan’s hand as inconspicuously as possible. He turned back to his food and began to eat, only giving Dongwan an occasional glance as he looked over the napkin while pretending to wipe his face with it.

Eric had been working on the plan for a couple of weeks, now, and it was foolproof—which was good, since Eric did have a few suspicions about Dongwan’s qualifications as a master of espionage. Essentially, Eric would continue to pretend like he didn’t care about Hyesung or S, and that he didn’t see anything wrong with it, while actually continuing to spy on Hyesung whenever possible. In the meantime, Dongwan would collect as much data as possible by calling Hyesung at least once every single day and interrogating him. Then, the information would be fed back to Eric, who would use it to develop an even better plan.

Eric wasn’t sure exactly what the even better plan would entail, or what he was actually hoping to accomplish by having Dongwan keep up with Hyesung, but he was sure something useful would come of it. And Hyesung would never have any idea it had happened. If Eric even decided to give him another chance, since this was such a serious transgression.

Caught up in his own thoughts, Eric didn’t even notice Dongwan clearing his throat and waving a napkin at him until he moved his chair closer and kicked him. Eric grabbed the napkin from Dongwan quickly—quickly enough to raise suspicions if there had actually been anyone else at that stand—luckily there was no one.

Dongwan had written at the bottom of the note, in illegibly small handwriting, “but what should we talk about?”

Eric sighed, ripping the napkin apart in his hands and destroying the evidence. He hadn’t really thought about that part. That’s why he had asked for Dongwan’s help—Dongwan was supposed to supply the conversation. Naturally, he’d have to have something to say to Hyesung every day for as long as the spying lasted, but if Eric knew what to say himself, he could call Hyesung.

“Mr. Kim,” he whispered. Dongwan raised his head slightly, while continuing to slurp down his noodles. “That’s your job.” Eric stood up, walking past Dongwan on his way out and handing him another napkin.

When Dongwan lifted this one, as if he was trying to wipe away some sweat, it read “you pay the bill this time – Mr. Mun.”

 

* * *

 

A week later, while he was waiting for the first stage of the operation to begin, Eric got a text from Hyesung: "We need a rapper for one of our songs."

He thought about not texting back, but his interest was piqued. Hyesung was a cheating bastard, but he knew how to get Eric's attention. Was he crawling back already?

"?" Sometimes a simple text could get the point across better than a long one. Besides, Eric wasn't going to give too much away. It'd make Hyesung too satisfied.

"Do you want to do it or not?" He didn't have to wait long for a text back. Apparently Hyesung was waiting by the phone. Maybe his affair wasn't going as well as he had hoped. Before Eric could text back, Hyesung sent another text. "Here's the address. If you're not coming, let me know and we'll get someone else."

Yeah, right. Like Eric would give him the satisfaction of showing up there and rapping on Hyesung's affair album. But what did he mean "get someone else" ? As if it wasn't bad enough to cheat with other singers, now he was going to cheat with another rapper? The smug, dirty son of a--

...maybe it would be better to go out there and take a look around, just to see how things were going. It's not like Eric was planning on forgiving Hyesung, or anything, and he wasn't trying to do him a favor, but it was a rare opportunity to go inside the enemy's lair. It could make the planning process for the next stage of the mission a lot easier if he could observe Hyesung-ie for a day or two.

"When?"

"Now."

 

* * *

 

It was the third day of Dongwan’s espionage phone tactics, and Hyesung didn’t seem to be taking it very well. In fact, it had taken four separate phone calls to make him pick up the telephone at all. The first day they had just made small talk until Dongwan had finally asked about S. Hyesung had said it was going well, but didn’t give up any details.

On the second day, Dongwan had pretended he had meant to call Minwoo, and then proceeded to question Hyesung again about S—because he “had him on the phone already.” On day three, Hyesung seemed very reluctant to answer the phone at all.

“Dongwan, you know I’m busy, right? I don’t really have time to talk,” he said, without even saying “hello” first or anything pleasant.

“Yeah, but I just wanted to see how it was going. I thought you might be lonely, without Shinhwa there to record with you.” Dongwan knew that Eric had been there to record for a song, but from what he had gathered from the other man's avoidance of the subject, he had been unable to gather any valuable intel—in fact, it seemed like Eric had not come in contact with the target at all, besides a glimpse of the back of his head. So it was all up to Dongwan.

“There are plenty of people at the recording studio. In fact, I think you and I just talked about this yesterday. And the day before. Are you sure you don’t have any other reason for calling?”

“What? Me? No. I honestly just want to know how it’s going. And maybe see if you’re missing us. Any of us. Or all of us? For example, maybe you could've seen one of us recently, but you didn't because of some circumstances, and now you're living in regret?” Dongwan’s espionage expertise was lost on Hyesung, who didn’t seem to understand the fine art of providing answers without asking questions of his own.

“Did Eric ask you to call? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Hyesung asked, sounding highly suspicious, despite Dongwan’s light and natural tone.

“What? No! Why would Eric ask me to call you? Eric hasn’t said a word about you in weeks. Why? Do you want Eric to call you? Have you been waiting for him to call? Are you planning on—”

“Listen, Dongwan, if Eric wants to talk to me, or ask me anything, he can call and talk to me himself. Tell that bastard he better think really hard about what he’s done before he calls, though, because I haven’t forgiven him a bit, and—”

It was almost a half hour later when Hyesung’s lecture ended, and Dongwan was faced with having to call Eric and tell him how the conversation had gone. It wasn’t his fault that Hyesung was such an excellent and perceptive detective—if he was a private eye, or a secretary for a private eye, he would hire Hyesung on the spot—but he couldn’t help but think that Eric would blame him, anyway.

 

* * *

 

“And then he said you were a sneaky, slippery, loach who couldn’t be trusted and didn’t have any human decency. But I swear I didn’t tell him anything! He figured it out on his own. All of that was direct quotes,” Dongwan explained to Eric that night, in the corner of a parking deck where they would likely not be spotted.

Eric frowned, and began to smooth the wrinkles between his eyes with his forefinger. The operation was a bust. Hyesung was onto them. Not only was he onto them, but he was still denying his wrongdoings until the bitter end, it seemed.

“So, what did you say to him after that?”

“Honestly, I’m an expert and all, but I have to admit having a previous business relationship with the target made it difficult to keep emotions completely uninvolved,” Dongwan said, nervously adjusting one of his leather gloves.

“Meaning?”

“I begged our Hyesung-ie not to leave Shinhwa and to only do S for a little while, then come right back to us when he’s finished, because we love him and we can’t do anything without our lead singer. Sorry, Mr. Mun, but feelings clouded my judgment. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take myself off of this mission. You and Hyesung will have to work this out on your own.” And with that, Dongwan opened the passenger door and slipped into the darkness of the garage, leaving Eric to contemplate his next move alone.

 

* * *

 

Another few weeks went by, and Eric still hadn’t decided what his next move should be in Operation Stop Hyesung. Even the trip to the studio had been a bust, since the only human being he'd talked to had been a producer, who seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that he was an accomplice in an affair. And Hyesung was too smart to leave physical evidence of his indiscretions around the studio—even if it was the scene of the crime.

Since things were going so poorly, he had contacted another, less seasoned, master of espionage—Andy Lee. But all of Mr. Lee’s ideas seemed to be a little more forceful than necessary. One of them, for example, had been “kidnap him and lock him in your apartment until he admits what he did wrong,” and another, “you could always just apologize,” had been absolutely ridiculous, so they were still working out the kinks.

In all of the time that had passed, the release date for Hyesung’s Betrayal Group’s first album had finally arrived, and Eric had gone stealthily into the closest music store to buy a copy. Not that he wanted to hear it, of course, but it was always necessary to study the enemy as closely as possible. Which was why he wasn’t waiting to get home to listen to it—he was playing it in the car. There was no time to waste, honestly.

He had to admit, for a group built on lies and betrayal, the album was pretty good. Hyesung, especially, had a voice that sent tingles down his spine. But that was probably rage.

There were even more tingles (of rage, of course) down his spine when his phone began to ring as he reached his apartment, and he looked at it only to see Hyesung’s name on the display. The enemy was calling him. For the first time in weeks. He would have to remain calm, and not blow his cover.

“Yes?” Eric answered, making sure the volume was turned all the way down on the car’s stereo. It wouldn’t do for Hyesung to know he was onto him.

“Did you hear it yet?”

“Hear what?”

“The album, you bastard. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Hyesung hadn’t changed a bit in the time since Eric had last spoken to him. He still sprinkled curse words through every sentence spoken over a telephone. Not that Eric had any warm feelings toward him or anything, but it was almost endearing.

“I didn’t buy it or anything, but I think I heard a little bit of it. Why do you ask?” Eric asked, still sitting in his car even though he had arrived at his building.

“Sure. Whatever. I called to ask if you’d heard one of the songs, ‘I Swear’?”

“Huh? I don’t know, maybe I might have caught a little bit of it,” Eric said. He wouldn’t admit to the enemy that he remembered the song very well after just listening to it for the first time a few minutes before. And he definitely wouldn’t say it was the best one on the album.

“Yeah, well, even though you’re a loach and you don’t deserve this, I just wanted you to know that I thought about you when we recorded it.” And with that, the enemy ended the call.

Eric stared dumbly at his hands, turning his phone over in them in confusion, before finally pressing play on the car’s stereo. He would listen to the song one more time, he decided, as he began to blush in a way that wasn’t very professional, and then he would call Hyesung back.


End file.
